


How dare you disrespect Mothman in my home

by DairyFarmer



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Coran isn't in this I'm so sorry, Cryptid Keith, I Can't Believe I Wrote This, M/M, Mothman, Pining Keith (Voltron), blue gets mentioned, but you don't know until later, it's hinted throughout tho, keith is a former delinquent, keith like 'like-likes' lance, not really tho, she's a cat, this boy needs a new hobby
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 00:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9467105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DairyFarmer/pseuds/DairyFarmer
Summary: "Aaaah!" Lance shrieked as Keith tackled him to the hard ground. Keith began reaching for the duct tape he held in one hand the entire time."It's just a costume you dumb bitch!" Lance screamed as he frantically attempted to kick Keith off him, but the bastard was stronger than he looked.XxXLance knows that Keith has been dying to prove Mothman's existence since they were in middle school so when Keith forces their group of friends to drive with him to West Virginia for some investigating....well then dressing up and freaking Keith out a little bit would be simple payback. Of course with Keith involved it doesn't end up quite the way he planned.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all realize this trope is dangerously close to crossing into furry territory.

"Shiro can you drive me somewhere?" Keith asked, interrupting Lance's tutoring session with Allura and Shiro in the campus library. Shiro looked up from his textbook and straitened up in his seat.

"Sure Keith, where to?" He responded, smiling in a kind, indulgent way.

"West Virginia." Keith immediately responded, his face set with a look of unyielding determination. Shiro's soft smile faltered and he shot a look to Allura, who appeared equally confused. Lance shrugged his shoulders, also at a loss, when Shiro turned his attention to him.

"Um, why West Virginia?" Shiro asked hesitantly. Rather than answering Keith whipped out his phone which appeared to have an article opened on the screen. Shiro leaned in to read the first few lines before he closed his eyes and sighed in exasperation.

"Keith I'm not going to drive you to all the way to West Virginia just so you can go hunting for " _Mothmen_ "." Shiro explained in a manner that suggested great exhaustion. Keith bristled in offense.

"Okay first of all it's 'MothMAN'-alright? Singular. And secondly, why not?" Keith asked in a harsh whisper, leaning over the table to hiss at Shiro who steadily moved further back into his seat.

"Because it's a long ways drive for something insignificant, we can't just drop everything and leave for you to find your Mothman-and who knows how long that will even take." Shiro reasoned.

"Insignificant?"Keith sputtered. "Shiro! This is Mothman we're talking about! Plus you drove all the way to New York with Hunk to pay Lance's bail when his dumb ass got himself arrested for public indecency!" Keith argued.

"Hey!" Lance shouted, about to argue before he was shushed by Allura who discreetly pointed to the Librarian giving him the evil-eye.

"That's different. It was my parental duty as his father. You and I both know that Lance is a child." Shiro said with such conviction that Lance, for a brief horrified moment, wondered if Shiro actually was his dad.

Keith was still unhappy at Shiro's words and looked ready to argue the point further before he was struck by a look of realization and a smirk made its way onto his face. Neither of which spelt out good intentions- Shiro recognized that look, and instinctively knew things didn't bode well for him.

"If you don't drive me to West Virginia," Keoth began already looking smug, "than I'm going to tell Coran that during his Christmas Party last year- it was _you_ who threw-" Shiro moved so quickly Lance almost didn't see him. Shiro's prosthetic hand was clapped tightly over Keith's mouth, his face an embarrassingly bright shade of red.

"You promised you would never tell anyone about that!" Shiro hissed, his face displaying intense embarrassment at whatever Keith was about to blab about.

"That was before Mothman came into the picture now do we have a deal?" Keith said, scoffing slightly once Shiro removed his hand. Shiro visibly struggled to come up with a response before his shoulders slumped and he nodded his silent agreement. Keith's eyes sparkled in excitement.

"Alright! We're all going at the beginning of Winter break, pack lightly we're going to be moving around a lot! We're going to need all hands on deck, Allura you're the back-up driver for when Shiro gets tired and Lance you're on equipment duty."

Lance's head shot up in surprise.

"Woah woah, slow down there Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Ravenway, I did not agree to come on your little ghost-demon-ghoul expedition! I happen to have a sweet little thing waiting for me back home." That 'sweet little thing' was actually his pet cat, Blue who he hasn't seen since the summer and his mom wouldn't let them talk on the phone together anymore-but Keith didn't need to know that. And Keith, like the jackass he is ,scoffed.

"I don't see how you're going to get home without a plane ticket or a credit card to buy one."

Lance knew that Keith was a troubled youth it's how they became sorta friends- Keith mugged his innocent seventh grade ass and they'd been together ever since. And the one thing that Lance was willing to give to Keith was that the boy was damn good at robbing people. So when he said that-Lance instantly reached into his backpack, searching for his wallet, which was of course not there.

"Dude!" Lance hissed. Keith reached into his pocket and pulled out Lance's white leather wallet, dangling it teasingly in front of him.

"You will get this back once you've set up the heat sensing cameras and audio equipment in Point Pleasant West Virginia." Keith stated as if this wasn't even a negotiation. Lance gaped at him in absolute shock.

"Bruh."

XxX

It was official his Winter break sucked.

Lance was squished against the car door with Keith's bony elbows digging into what he was certain was a kidney. Shiro, Allura, and Hunk were all happily singing along to the music that Keith made a playlist of for the trip-but Lance just thanked god he hadn't been forced to listen to the X-files theme on repeat yet. Pidge was sitting in the back, typing away at their laptop, amongst all the equipment that Keith borrowed/stole from the Photography and Studio department. Lance had tried to sweet talk Keith into letting him out of the trip, but had instead ended up being manhandled into the car personally by Keith, putting him directly behind Allura who got shotgun.  

Lance sighed in annoyance and idly wondered if Blue's Christmas present had come in the mail yet-online reviews said that the scratching post was supposed to be one of the best around. But what did it matter if he wouldn't be there to see his best girl's face when she opened it?

Lance let out another exaggerated sigh before he was elbowed sharply in the side by Keith. Lance immediately turned to glare at the garbage monster that dragged him into this stupid adventure. But stopped when he saw that his kinda-friend look genuinely inquisitive, watching him him with creased forehead and curious look. Lance shook his head signifying nothing was wrong and turned to look out the window, watching as they raced past the landscape of the highway. After a while Lance began to feel his eyelids grow heavier-three hours of straight driving could do that to a person. Just as Lance began to feel his consciousness slipping-he heard it.

The fucking X-files theme.

Which was immediately drowned out when Lance let out a cry of pure anguish.

XxX

After getting a bruised arm courtesy of Keith and driving for another mind numbing two hours, Keith finally let them stop for the night at a roadside motel that Lance was relatively positive someone was murdered at.

The group split off in pairs to share rooms. Allura got Shiro, Pidge got Hunk, and Lance ended up with Keith-not because he wanted to; but because Lance ended up losing at rock, paper, scissors.  Everyone knew that Keith was the worst person to share a room with, it wasn't because he snored or some other thing he couldn't control. No.

It was because he stayed up late watching conspiracy theory documentaries and writing in cryptid fanatics chat forums before he eventually climbed into the bed of the person he was sharing a room with to ask their opinion.

So Lance had two options- get a few hours of sleep before Keith woke him up in the middle of the night to ask whether he thought that shape shifting lizard people ran their society or get a full night of sleep in Shiro's weird smelling, cramped car and feel like absolute shit in the morning.

....Well the answer was obvious.

When the last person exited the car Lance threw himself at Shiro, taking the opportunity to cop a feel and grab his car keys. He immediately unlocked the car, jumped in, and relocked the door behind him as quickly as he could and more importantly, faster than anyone could react. Once he knew he was secure in the car he allowed himself to relax, stretching himself out on the passenger seats, and ignoring Shiro's banging and shouted demands to unlock the door. He made the right decision.

XxX

It had to be the middle of the night when he woke up to someone poking his forehead. Lance groaned in exhaustion and forced his sleep crusted eyes open and glare at the person disrupting his beauty sleep and lo and behold who was there but Keith fucking Kogane crouched over him like a demon from hell with a wild gleam in his eyes.

Lance shrieked and attempted to scrambled away but immediately ended up pinned when Keith crawled over his thighs and plopped down, shoving him against the passenger side door. The weight of the other boy was enough to expel the air from his lungs and he immediately restarted his struggle under Keith.

"Why are you so heavy?!" Lance rasped. "What the hell do you eat?!" He grunted as he attempted to shove the other boy off him.

"Protein shakes and microwave dinners." Keith responded before shoving his phone in Lance's face. The screen was set to its maximum brightness and Lance squinted at the screen, its white light burning his retinas.

"Wha-?"

"Does this time traveler look like Dan Akroyd to you?"

Lance's struggle soon gained ferocity as he attempted to buck Keith off but Keith simply leaned down and used the rest of his freakishly heavy body to press Lance into the seats, forcing his struggles to slow down significantly. Keith's chin was digging uncomfortably into Lance's sternum as he waited patiently for Lance to stop fighting.

Lance sucked in a deep breath as he ceased his movements and admitted that perhaps he may have fucked up, just a little bit.

They both laid together in still silence before Lance groaned and tilted his head back, hitting it on the armrest panel.

“Are we talking young or old Akroyd?” He asked.  Keiths eyes glimmered in happiness as he continually flipped through “photographic evidence” on his phone and babbled to Lance about ‘Spies Like Us’ being a prophetic message for the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Lance felt sleep begin to catch up to him, but every time he made to close his eyes Keith would pinch his eyelids and whine about not being finished. The cycle of almost-sleep and rude awakening lasted well into the morning when the others came back from the checkout desk of the motel with breakfast that Hunk picked up from the Diner next door.

Shiro knocked on the window that Lance’s deprived body was leaned against before making his way to the other side of the car and opening the door on Keith’s side, handing him two takeout boxes of Diner-standard syrup soaked blueberry pancakes and parchment baggies stuffed with hash browns. Keith carefully opened both takeout boxes and critically selected the one with slightly bigger portions. He unceremoniously dumped the other one in Lance’s lap and tossed him his bag of hash browns while he was at it, hitting Lance in the cheek and spilling some on the seats.

Lance turned his tired eyes to Keith and asked the question that had been weighing on his mind.

“How did you get into the car last night? I locked the doors.”

Keith snorted and crumbs of various breakfast foods went flying from his mouth and landed on the floor of Shiro’s car, which was being pulled out of the motel’s parking lot with Allura at the wheel, Hunk taking shotgun, and both Shiro and Pidge sharing the backseat.

Keith turned to look at him, superiority shining in his eyes, “I broke in. Duh.”

This  _bitch_. Lance grit his teeth in annoyance and huffed, turning away from smug mcfuckface.

‘ _You’ll get yours Kogane’_ he swore to himself.

“You gonna eat yours or can I have it?” He heard Keith ask as his takeout box was swiped from his lap before he had a chance to grab it and opened on Keith’s in one fell swoop.

‘ _You’ll get yours’_ he repeated as he watched Keith devour HIS breakfast in front of his own eyes.

XxX

Point Pleasant, West Virginia was actually a not so bad place. The streets weren’t too busy, the people were pretty friendly, their motels didn’t look like they were from an episode of CSI so in Lance’s book the place was okay for a suburban esque tourist attraction town. He may have enjoyed it more if Keith hadn’t forced him to carry his bag but otherwise he almost forgot he didn’t want to be there, that is until he spotted _it_. It being a six foot tall statue of fucking ‘Mothman’.

Lance watched, disgusted, as his so called “friends” all took turns taking selfies in front of the statue. Lance stared at the carved face of the Mothman and felt a bubble of hatred rise in him. ‘ _This is all your fucking fault’_ he seethed.

“Lance! Take a picture with me!” Keith demanded as he stood cradled in the arms of the Mothman statue. Lance felt his face twist further in disgust and instead turned around, running towards the shops in the distance and yelling about finding a bathroom to take a shit in. Once he was a good distance away Lance let out a sigh of relief and began looking around at the various shops around him. There were some boutiques, restaurants, a laundromat, and a souvenir shop. Lance considered looking around the boutiques but then he remembered- he had no fucking money. But it was at that moment that he realized it didn’t matter if he didn’t have _his_ money because he had Keith’s bag and therefore had access to _Keith’s_ money.

‘Karma has come to collect you _bitch’_ Lance thought vindictively as he opened Keith’s bag and dug around for his brown cloth wallet. He lifted in triumph once he found it in one of the pockets, the one next to his knife. Seriously, what was wrong with that boy?

Lance flipped open Keith’s wallet and was met with the sight of several large bills unceremoniously stuffed inside.

‘ _What the fuck?’_ He thought, slightly horrified as he counted the money up.

“Who the fuck walks around with five-hundred dollars in cash?” He asked out loud. What was Keith, a drug dealer? No wait that actually made a little bit of sense.

Lance looked around, wondering what he could blow this on and was met with the sight of the costume shop he noticed a little while ago; in the display window was a life-like costume of Mothman.  

The costume was a dark grey and looked form fitting with large wings that looked slightly transparent and a little ripped, kinda like a moth’s-ohhhh the name made a lot more sense now. The hands and feet were clawed and the head looked more like a fly head, with compound eyes that were tinted red.  ‘ _This_.’ he thought as he entered the shop, a bell signaling his arrival. ‘ _This is how Lance McClain will get revenge for all the pain Keith Kogane has caused me.’_ He approached the man at the register and happily asked the price of the costume in the window.  

Three-hundred and fifty dollars. No refunds or returns. Excellent.

XxX

Lance had a hard time hiding the Mothman costume from everyone else. He ended up stashing it under the bed of his and Keith’s shared motel room until it was time.

Keith forced Lance to set up the stolen equipment practically in the middle of nowhere and while Lance would normally be bitter about that this time he took the opportunity to get the lay of the land and figure out his exact plan to freak out Keith with his newly acquired costume.  His plan came together pretty quickly after that. There was rope included in the supplies for the cameras, for the sake of tying them up in trees; Lance could use them to make his “descent” from the trees and into Keith’s path when they came back at night for the actual ‘night stalking’.  Lance could make them all break up into pairs and lure Keith to the location where his plan would be set into motion. He would ditch Keith halfway through and change into the costume before scaling a tree and then swinging down in front of Keith. Then sticking around long enough to watch him pee his pants.

His plan was perfect and nothing could go wrong!

XxX

Something went wrong.

It turns out scaling a tree in a full body Mothman costume, wings and all, was a lot harder than he originally thought. The clawed feet offered no traction so he was relying entirely on his upper body strength which wasn’t easy either since the hands were also clawed. So Lance was basically dancing about thirteen feet in the air and holding onto a tree branch, waiting for Keith to just show up already. Which he could hear him doing right about now.

“Mothman? My name is Keith Kogane, I am your ally. Come out…..please?” Keith whispered into the surrounding brush before moving on and repeating the phrase again. The little twerp needed to get out more, or at least a better hobby. Lance’s arms were straining in exertion,he just needed Keith to get a little bit _closer- *crack*_

Lance looked up at the branch holding his weight, it was slowly snapping. Oh crap. The branch gave out and Lance fell thirteen feet to the ground letting out a loud shriek meanwhile.

He hit the ground with a loud resounding ‘thump’ and groaned at the blooming pain in his abdomen. Lance slowly lifted his masked head up and caught sight of a stunned Keith gaping at him from five feet away.

‘Mothman?’ he mouthed at Lance. Keith’s eyes glinted with a deranged gleam that Lance did not like.  He slowly reached into his backpack, as if afraid he would startle Lance,  and pulled out the same knife Lance saw earlier along with a roll of- was that duct tape?! Lance struggled to stand up and back away from a slowly approaching Keith.

“It’s okay I won’t hurt you.” Keith insisted as he raised his knife. Lance tried to talk but all that came out were choking noises. Keith’s eyes widened, “Is that how you communicate?” he asked. Lance shook his head and waved his hands pointing at himself and up at the tree he fell from trying to get Keith to listen. Keith nodded in understanding.

“So you’re from outer space. Don’t worry I won’t tell anyone, I just need to-” He lunged for Lance his knife pointed _right at him._

Lance dodged out of the way and started backing away frantically attempting to yell but the fall had knocked the wind out of him and the mask and costume didn’t exactly make it easier to breath. Keith gave chase and made a move to knock Lance down and like hell was Lance going to die like this.

Lance had a hard time maneuvering around Keith and the wings were caught on the knife several times before it was knocked out of Keith’s hands who immediately raised his fists and began to throw punches, most of which were cheap shots.

Lance could feel air entering his lungs once again despite the physically arduous things he had been doing up until that point.

“Keith wai-” Lance dodged a punch to the dick.

“It’s me! Lanc-” another shot aimed at his face.

“Would you stop and list-” the punch landed on his shoulder and _fuck_ did that hurt.

Keith had Lance cornered and raced towards him, his arms stretched out leaving nowhere for Lance to run. This was it.

"Aaaah!" Lance shrieked as Keith tackled him to the hard ground. Keith began reaching for the duct tape he held in one hand the entire time.

"It's just a costume you dumb bitch!" Lance screamed as he frantically attempted to kick Keith off him, but the bastard was stronger than he looked.

Lance’s screams of terror and the sound of fighting apparently attracted the attention of Shiro and Allura who finally reached the clearing Lance and Keith were having their scuffle in.  From their perspective Keith was straddling a crying Mothman who was screaming and attempting to crawl away from the determined cryptid hunter.

“Oh my god,” Allura whispered in disbelief.

“Holy shit Keith was right,” Shiro gaped watching the scene unfold in front of him. Mothman turned his _hideous_ head towards them and stretched out an arm in their direction.

“Shiro! Allura! Help me! Keith’s trying to kill me!” It screeched.

“Ewww how does it know our names?”a cringing Shiro asked. Allura squinted at Keith and his prisoner before letting out a loud gasp of realization.

“That’s not Mothman! That’s Lance! Keith get off him!” She shouted and raced to a sobbing Lance's side, who was already partially tied up. Keith attempted to shove Allura away, yelling that it was just a ruse and that Mothman was just trying to trick them and that-!

The mask slipped off Lance’s face.

Lance was drenched in sweat and panting heavily, gazing up at Keith who stared down at him in disbelief.

“Lance! You’re secretly Mothman??? How could you not tell me?!” He cried. Lance took advantage of Keith’s momentary distraction and roughly kicked him off, into Allura’s waiting hands. Lance ripped off the clawed gloves and tried to unzip the suit from the back before accepting help from a confused Shiro.

“I’m not fucking Mothan!” Lance yelled, frustrated.

“I bought this costume from a shop back in town! I was planning on freaking you out a little because you’ve been such a pain in my ass for the last few weeks! So I figured Mothman costume, you piss your pants a little, and then we all go home and leave this shitty town behind us!” He screamed in one breath. Keith watched him with wide, stunned eyes before his face curved into a frown.

“If you didn’t want to come you should’ve just said so.”

It took the combined power of Shiro and Allura to hold Lance back from strangling Keith.

XxX

Despite Lance's earlier attempt to murder Keith that did not stop Allura and Shiro from forcing him to share a motel room with Keith _again_.

The two sat on their own beds in relative silence, Lance intending to not speak to Keith for the rest of the trip and maybe forever if he had anything to say about it! Keith was just a bossy, selfish, no-good, awful, son of a bi-

"I'm sorry." Keith whispered, breaking the silence between them. Keith's eyes were trained on the ground so Lance couldn't see his face, but he could see how red his ears were.

"I thought that since we're friends we would share the same interests so I thought that...with a little pushing you might have a good time with me....uh I mean  _us._ " He began, uncomfortably.

"But it looks like I was wrong. I just made you mad at me like I always do, but I just wanted to do something together with you because I kinda' l-l-like you-I mean I-I just...yeah." He trailed off awkwardly. Lance sat in stunned silence before opening his mouth to respond.

"Do you mean you 'like' me or you _'like-like'_ me?" Lance asked. Keith awkwardly cracked his knuckles and looked away from Lance, refusing to meet his eyes. Lance hated to admit that it was a little cute. This shy-boy Keith was such a 360 turn from his usual self. Lance slowly made his way towards Keith's bed and silently slid up next to him on the lumpy motel mattress. 

"I wouldn't really mind if you did ya' know? Because I think that I might 'like-like' you too. Sometimes at least, the rest of the time you're just annoying." He said, rushing the last bit on the off  chance that Keith might not actually like him in _that way_.

Keith looked up from the ground and met Lance's eyes, his cheeks were a bright red and he was biting his lips uncertainly as if considering Lance's words.

"Soooo you like me and I like you...that's good?" He asked, tilting his head and furrowing his brows. Lance nodded and turned his head away. Could this get anymore awkward?

Keith loudly cleared his throat,"Could I-uhm, kiss you," he asked. At the sight of Lance's surprised face he quickly back tracked.

"You don't have to say yes! It's just the moment was awkward and I'm just going off what I've seen in movies so-" Lance cut him off with a kiss. It was a simple press of the lips together, nothing wild, but Keith melted into him. Keith reached up and stroked Lance's cheek, slowly getting into a crouch and pushing him down onto his back. Keith pulled away first and looked down at Lance with a flushed face and a content smile tugging at his lips. Lance grinned back and pushed himself further back on the bed so he rested comfortably on the pillows. 

Keith crawled up to his side and swung his knee over Lance’s hip so he was straddling him. Both his arms formed a cage around Lance’s head and he leaned down, his lips barely brushing Lance’s, his chest hovering over him, trapping him in his place. Lance closed his eyes and let out a small gasp into Keith’s mouth, he could feel a tingling already beginning in his groin from his excitement, he was practically shivering in anticipation, his hands itching to touch Keith, to run them down his solid body. Keith trailed his lips against Lance’s cheek and leant down to whisper in Lance’s ear, his voice hoarse and wanting.

“How bout you put that costume back on? Just for me this time?”

Nope. Lance’s boner was gone it was good and dead.

“Get the fuck off me I’m gonna go sleep in Shiro’s shitty car.” Lance grumbled, pushing away a stunned Keith

Why the fuck did Mothman have to ruin fucking everything? Fuck.

XxX

Epilogue:

“Hey Keith did you ever get a chance to look over the footage from the cameras that Lance set up?” Pidge asked as they plopped down next to Keith at the campus library. Keith lifted his head from his textbook, his mind swimming in algorithms and formulas he had to memorize before his next test and made an uncertain sound that could have also been a groan of pain.  

Pidge grinned and flipped open their laptop, turning it to face Keith. The pictures just looked like the trees from the surrounding woodland,nothing interesting whatsoever.

“Pidge what am I looking at?” Keith sighed, still not over the disappointment from their disastrous trip to Point Pleasant. He almost got Lance to be his boyfriend but then creeped him out with shit he definitely should have saved for the fourth date. Thankfully Lance was willing to give him a second chance so it wasn’t a complete loss.

Pidge’s smile widened and pushed a button on their laptop, the picture zoomed into one of the trees in the upper right corner. At first Keith dismissed it as a shadow from one of the trees, it was dark after all, but then he noticed the weird shape of the shadow, how it seemed to form part of a torso and maybe even a wing-no fucking way.

Keith dropped his highlighter and grabbed Pidge's laptop bringing it closer to his face.

“Is that..?” Keith trailed off. Pidge nodded enthusiastically before grabbing their laptop from Keith’s hands and putting down on the table between them.

“There’s more,” They exclaimed, flipping through a slide show of grainy pictures and dark blobs. Dark blobs that formed the shape of a man with wings, in the trees and in one instance even in the air. Keith felt his excitement skyrocket.

“Mothman’s real,” he breathed.

“MOTHMAN’S FUCKING REAL!” He shrieked startling dozens of exhausted, overworked college students all cramming for exams.

**Author's Note:**

> I will regret many things in the duration of my short life. This is not one of them.


End file.
